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How to Make your LinkedIn Profile Work for you – 3 Minute Guide

LinkedIn has fast become the preferred platform for recruiters to search for potential employees. In some cases, outstanding individuals have been head hunted through this portal bypassing all other standard recruitment formalities. However, in order to get noticed by recruiters in the first place, and secondly, to make a mark on their memory when they are scrolling through long lists of equally distinguished candidates, your LinkedIn profile needs to be a class apart. It should not only be a succinct summary of your career graph and strongest skills but should also boldly outline how you can be of use in the growth of any organisation. Here’s how you can make your LinkedIn profile work for your benefit –

A Descriptive Headline – Beware of generic and default settings of all professional networking and social media platforms! Remember to always fill in a description of yourself in the headline section. If you omit this step, your platform will only show the company you’ve worked/are working with and the position held by you. It is prudent to describe your functional and technical expertise in few words. This will help establish the brand that is you in a quick glance.

Optimize your Summary – While the headline gives you a relatively small playing field, the summary is where you can truly let your abilities shine by going all out. The best way to ensure that your summary portrays a good reflection of you is to look at it as a standalone description. Imagine it to be your calling card. Ask yourself if someone were to hire you based off on just this summary, what could you possibly say to them to clinch the deal! Let it tell your story. Once you’ve highlighted all your assets, skills and professional background, optimize your summary by using searchable keywords and pertinent, updated terminology. Remember, profile summary is the actual searchable aspect of your profile.

Reconcile your Profile with your Resume – Ensure there is no discord between your Resume and your profile. They should be true reflections of each other chronologically as well as content-wise. You cannot list a job on your profile and omit listing it in your profile and vice versa. However, it is also important to not let your profile and resume be carbon copies of each other. Remember that LinkedIn gives you the option to upload your Resume to your profile. Having the exact same wording in both places can put off potential recruiters. The best way to optimize both these aspects of your profile is to let the work experience section be a road-map to your Resume. It should tell recruiters what to expect and then your Resume can follow it up with more detailed specifics.

Work Description – Building on the same point, do not make your work experience/description section be too verbose. Leave that aspect for your Resume. You profile should cover the key highlights of the work you’ve done till now and have a sufficient enough description of the current role that you’re undertaking.

Customize your Profile URL – As a default setting, your profile URL will appear as a randomized bunch of numbers and letters. However, LinkedIn offers you the option to customize it. Make your URL personalized by changing it to your name. This imparts a cleaner, crisper look to your profile and will also ensure your name appears every time your profile is shared by anyone, anywhere! Thus, recruiters are more likely to retain it in their mind when sorting through candidates.

Apart from these game-changers, you can also indulge in some basic brushing-up of your profile like updating your contact information, display picture, other settings and by staying active and relevant on website.

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